Directions

Preheat the grill to low. Place your Stainless Steel or Reversible Griddle over the direct heat.

Step 3

Sift together the dry ingredients, the salt, sugar, cinnamon, flour, and baking powder. If you don’t have an actual sifter – I sure don’t – you can use a whisk or a fork. Just make sure that it’s thoroughly mixed.

Step 4

In another bowl, beat the egg, add the shortening, mash the shortening so that it breaks up into fairly small chunks, add the buttermilk and vanilla.

Step 5

Add the chopped bacon and the chocolate chips to the dry ingredients, then pour in the buttermilk mixture. Stir until they are just combined and there are no large lumps of flour.

Step 6

When your griddle is hot enough to make a drop of water dance, scoop roughly ¼ cup of batter for each pancake onto the griddle. If you’re using the Stainless Steel one, you will want to use butter, bacon fat, or nonstick spray first, however the shortening in the pancakes will offer some non-stick-y-ness to the pancakes as well.

Step 7

Your pancake is ready to flip when bubbles start to form and pop on the un-cooked side of the pancake. If the heat is too high, the underside will begin to burn before this happens, watch your pancakes closely!

Step 8

Flip your pancakes and cook for about 2 minutes, or until the second side of the pancake is golden and brown and the inside is set.

Step 9

Serve your pancakes hot with more bacon and syrup.

Hotcakes, flapjacks, or pancakes, no matter what you call them, they're a delicious part of the breakfast routine. Happy National Pancake Day everyone!

How about a little history? The earliest recordings of pancakes came from the 5th century B.C. in Greece. Go figure, they do everything first! The pancakes that they made were called Tagenites and were made with wheat flour, olive oil, honey and curdled milk. Nowadays, there are many different kinds of pancakes. Some are sweet and others are savoury. You can make them with a rising agent to have fluffy and thick pancakes, or you can make them without and have thin crêpe-style ones - they're great for filling!

Pancakes are so fantastic that there are clubs and celebrations! You have pancake suppers and fund raisers, there is even Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Tuesday, where it is said that back in olden days the people would make pancakes to use up all of the fatty foods before Lent. Now don't get National Pancake Day confused with Pancake Tuesday. One of the key differences is that today happens to be a Thursday, and there is no giving up of anything after eating these. Well you may give up on fitting into your pants for the night, but that is really it.

So to celebrate this prestigious and fantastic day I decided to make something old and combine it with something new. I made Old Fashioned Buttermilk Pancakes but I added my own little spin on it. I added bacon bits and chocolate chips!